Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
More concretely, it implies that the environmental benefits of some of the miti-
gations and potential solutions to aviation impacts discussed in Part 2 of the topic
will, at some point, be offset by growth. This is also the case for modal substitution
(see Chapter 8 by Milan Janic), and for aircraft and engine technology improve-
ments (see Jacquetta Lee in Chapter 10).
Only one chapter in Part 2 (Chapter 11 by Andreas Pastowski) positively addresses
the contentious issue of planning and policy instruments that could, in principle,
place upper limits on aggregate levels of particular impact types, rather than, for
example, per-aircraft engine emission certification standards applied by the UN Inter-
national Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) under Volume II of Annex 16 to the
1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation. Thus, greenhouse gas control pol-
icies, for example, could, in principle, be used to control the scale of a nation's avia-
tion sector by placing an upper cap on tradeable CO
2
emissions permits. This said,
both commentators and practitioners are well aware of the potential for aircraft
noise emissions to limit aviation growth (see, in particular, Joop Krul's reference to
Schiphol Airport's extrapolations in Chapter 12). Explicit advocation of limits to
growth is left to commentators in the political sector (see several of the other com-
mentaries in Chapter 12).
W
IDER
VIEWS
OF
SUSTAINABILITY
In terms of the criteria above, growth in contemporary aviation cannot but be
unsustainable, and the same could be said of other transport sectors - indeed, of
most economic sectors. Yet, the general term 'sustainability' clearly means different
things to different people at the level of both principle and detail, and it is at the
level of detail that consensus on its meaning is hardest to maintain (Upham, 2000b).
This can be illustrated by comparing the application of the Organization for Eco-
nomic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) sustainability principles in Box
1.1 (OECD, 2001) to key components of contemporary aviation systems requiring
manufacture and operation (see Figure 1.1), the application of UK government sus-
tainability objectives (DETR, 1999).
The OECD principles selected are not unusual. They bear considerable similar-
ity to the common elements of other environmental sustainability principles reviewed
by Upham (2000b), which are:
•
Waste emissions are within the absorptive capacity of the receiving media.
•
Use of renewable resources is within self-regeneration capacity.
•
Intra-generational equity is accounted for.
Alternatively phrased, the OECD principles effectively supplement these core prin-
ciples with a substitutability element, such that they resemble Daly's seminal ecolog-
ical economic sustainability principles (see, for example, Goodland and Daly, 1996).
The following sections discuss aviation in relation to the OECD (2001) sustainabil-
ity principles.
